Farmers look forward to cereal harvest twice as large as last year's

Thursday, 12 July 2018 14:43

The Formentera Council's rural affairs office announces that the local farmers co-op has concluded harvests of cereals across 21 member fields plus those lent to it as part of the group's Cens de Terres de Cultiu (“Farmland Reserve”) project.

Harvesting across a total of 17.5 hectares (10ha of barley; 5.5ha of oats and 2ha of wheat), the co-op logged 21,100 kilograms of cereals (14 tonnes of barley, 4,100 kg of oats and three tonnes of wheat)—twice the size as last year, when Formentera was hit by a drought.

Wet weather behind successDepartment head Bartomeu Escandell welcomed the campaign's success, which he held up as the product of a “wet winter and a springtime cereals harvest which has reaped double what it did last year”. Escandell called such efforts “critical for the revival of the local primary sector and the protection of Formentera's rural environment”.

Factoring in another 39.5ha of fields belonging members of the co-op, the association oversaw work on a total of 57ha. That figure doesn't include another 52ha of fodder plantations, which were harvested in May.

Given the local varieties employed proved to be the most drought resistant, the co-op plans to use the harvested cereals for local consumption and seeds for future harvests.